Broken Fairy Tales and Sandy Flowers
by 3Kiyoshi3
Summary: Because Merope deserves a happier ending than the one she got, and because the plot bunnies wouldn't leave me alone. 20 truths about Merope and the Yondaime Kazekage. AU.


Twenty Truths about Merope and the 4th Kazekage  
Yes, I know I should be updating my other stories, but this had to be done. Merope deserves a slightly happier ending than the one she has, and this seems fitting for her. I don't own Naruto or Harry Potter.

* * *

1. Merope never received much training as a witch. As such, it was hardly surprising that she occasionally preformed accidental magic. However, her last piece of accidental magic was one of the greatest feats in magical history, and it quite literally changed the world.

2. On a particularly bad day in the Gaunt household, Merope wished that she was somewhere, anywhere else. Her latent magic stirred up, and her wish was granted.

3. Of course, suddenly finding herself sitting in the middle of a desert, surrounded by blood and rotting corpses was not what she had in mind.

4. She frantically checked for signs of life in any one of the bodies, and upon finding a man with bloody-red hair who was still, barely, breathing, she tired her best to save him, clumsily bandaging his wounds with strips from one of his dead comrades' shirts.

5. Her actions saved both his life and hers, for if a Suna black ops squad had seen her doing anything but trying frantically to save the life of one of their injured shinobi, she would have been killed on the spot.

6. As it was, they took her back to Suna with them. She enrolled in the Suna Shinobi Acadamy simply because she could not think of anything else to do with her life here. She was still trying to figure out who these strange people were, and exactly where she was. At least her language worries had been solved by a simple translation charm.

7. As much to her surprise as anyone else's, Merope quickly became one of the rising stars of the ninja world. She had superb chakra control, and had the potential to become one of the greatest genjutsu users in all of history.

8. This was around the time that she began to attract the attention of the man who's life she had saved.

9. He was never one to believe in such things as "love" or "destiny". However, he wanted a strong, relatively docile, and obedient wife. Merope fit that description perfectly. Almost immediately after meeting her for the second time, he began to court her.

10. Merope, on the other hand, did believe in love and destiny, and when she realized that the man whose life she had saved so long ago was the one who seemed so smitten with her now, she was ecstatic. She almost instantly agreed to let him take her on a date, or two, or three, or more. It probably helped that it was generally agreed that he was the hottest being in Suna, if not in the whole world.

11. Now that they were a fully established couple, Merope felt that her life couldn't get any better: she was in love, and(as far as she knew) the person she loved loved her in return, she had an excellent job, great friends, and her boyfriend was soon going to become the leader of the village.

12. Of course, that was before her boyfriend proposed to her. She immediately said yes, and they were married in a lavish ceremony which almost all of Suna attended.

13. Six months later, he was the Yondaime Kazekage and she was pregnant with their first child.

14. Nine months later, she gave birth to a little girl named Temari. Her husband made no secret of the fact that he was disappointed in her for giving him a daughter, a weak girl, instead of the strong son he wanted. Almost in tears, Merope begged her best friend, a wind user named Karura, to teach her daughter the art of the fan so that she wouldn't be completely useless and weak. Karura agreed, if only to give her friend some peace of mind.

15. About two years later, Merope gave birth to another child, this time a boy. Her husband was pleased with her, and thus Merope was happy. She named the boy Kankuro for his head of black fuzz, and quit her job as a shinobi, so she could spend all of her time at the luxurious kazekage mansion, taking care of her children. In those months before she became pregnant with her third child, Merope was a good mother to her two children. She told them bedtime stories, sang lullabies, and once in a while, when the fantasy struck, she told them tales of their heritage. Temari and Kankuro learned about a magical school named Hogwarts, about a power called "magic", sticks called wands, and a man named Gaunt, the descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Of course, they believed that these tales were pure fiction.

16. And then, Gaara came. For the first few months, it was a normal pregnancy. But then, people started whispering. Merope ignored them. Her husband loved her. He would never seal a demon inside her unborn son, if only because she would die from the birth. She ignored the seed of doubt that the whispers had planted.

17. Merope died in childbirth, never to see the demon her child would become. Her friend Karura named the baby, hoping for revenge on Merope's death. Little Gaara would never know that his original name had been Aiko.

18. The only time after meeting the Yondaime Kazekage that Merope thought of her father was moments before she died. She simply hoped that they wouldn't be waiting or her in the afterlife.

19. This however, was not her last thought. As she died, she was thinking of the inevitable time when her husband and children would meet her in the afterlife, and how best she could greet her newborn, motherless son. Merope left the world with no regrets and a smile on her face.

20. Several weeks after her death, as the Yondaime Kazekage placed a few anemone flowers on her grave, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he might have held more affection for his wife than he realized.

* * *

Yes... I'm a sucker for sappy and happy endings.


End file.
